Author Interview: Susan E. Swanberg
Volume 38, No. 2, Spring 2021

Susan E. Swanberg, formerly a bench scientist and criminal defense attorney, is now an Assistant Professor at the University of Arizona School of Journalism where she teaches news reporting, science journalism, environmental journalism and media law. In an interview with Editorial Assistant Ollie Graztinger, she discusses her article about E.W. Scripps and his creation of the Science Service News-Letter. Aimed at pushing more science news into the mainstream press, the Science Service also promoted the protoscience of eugenics from the mid-1920s until 1966.

Can you talk a little about what prompted you to do this kind of research? 

Well, I’ll tell you what happened. The American Journalism Historians Association gave me some money to explore an archive for Science Service. This was in 2018 that they awarded me the money. What I was originally interested in was finding out more about a particular female science journalist who’d been hired by this organization, which was founded in 1921, and I thought it was really cool that this organization hired women.

Then when I got to the archive, yes, there was a lot about the women they hired, but I kept finding references to a eugenics organization—lots of correspondence and things like that. I was a little surprised because I’d kind of idealized Science Service because their goals were really great, positive, and uplifting goals: to provide information to the public about science. But here they were, engaging with a eugenics organization. And that’s what prompted my interest, when I started finding that information in archives. It illustrates how important it is to actually visit archives and see what’s there because sometimes you find things that you don’t expect, and that’s what happened.

You mention how during the early 20th century, journalists and scientists were at odds with each other. Can you talk about this butting of heads a little, and about how Science Service hoped to bridge that rift—and how those intentions went awry?

It’s interesting to me because that [conflict between scientists and journalists] still happens. I teach a science journalism class and my students … sometimes have trouble even getting scientists to return emails. Scientists are afraid that their work is going to be misrepresented, so there still is a lot of that headbutting. So when I found references to it that early—in the early 20th century—I found it really interesting. The article by H.G. Wells in 1894, where he was giving advice to science popularizers that they should write like science is a mystery, I thought that was really fascinating because it sort of illustrates that the more things change, the more they stay the same. We’re still fighting some of those battles trying to communicate, trying to understand one another, and then trying to translate the complex science for the public. It’s got levels where the communication can go wrong.

Can you talk a little bit about what some of those social problems were and how these scientists thought eugenics might be a solution? 

They saw it in [terms of] genetics. The science of genetics was still immature. It was still in its own birth throes, and eugenics and genetics kind of spring from almost the same root. But genetics kept maturing. They developed modern techniques and they started to understand heredity, whereas eugenics kind of got stuck in  an old view of heredity that everything was a matter of dominant genes or recessive genes, and that wasn’t the case. Eugenicists attributed characteristics like laziness to single genes. …But now we understand that genetics is much more complex, and complex characteristics like behavior and intelligence and even height are usually determined by multiple genes interacting with the environment.

To summarize, eugenicists had a simplistic view of inheritance that many scientists knew even at that time was not really an accurate view. But it fit their view of social problems and the Other. It basically fit their view of the Other, and how to keep people out of the country, how to manage people who might have disabilities, and so they used that simplified view of genetics for social control.

Was there anything else that really surprised you or stood out while you were doing this research? 

(W)ell, one of the things that surprised me is how many people with a eugenics background, or who supported eugenics, were connected with [Science Service]. Science Service had very deep connections to eugenics. And then, you know, I hadn’t really thought about it but there’s been a resurgence in thought recently that has a connection, in my opinion, to eugenics. Views of people from other nations, other groups of people, and wanting those people to be eliminated or removed or not included. That lack of inclusiveness in today’s society harkens back a little bit to those old eugenics ideas. That was one of the things that’s surprising—how frequently even the term “eugenics” pops up. And then another thing really surprised me as I started really getting into this and reading; I have a PhD in genetics and I thought, “Why didn’t I ever hear about this? Why didn’t I hear about eugenics when I was studying genetics? I went back—I’ve kept all my textbooks—and I’ve only found one brief mention in one of my textbooks about eugenics, and it was just very short and very brief, not very encompassing, and I thought, “Wow.”

Some of the writers that I cite in my article talk about how the history of eugenics has been erased, or disappeared, or overlooked, and I think that’s true. That’s one of the areas of journalism history that I study now, what I call difficult histories—those histories that we don’t want to face, that we kind of erase. But in order for society to be just and fair, we need to look at those difficult histories and confront them. That’s what I pursue in some of my research.

What do you think we can learn about the public’s relationship to science today by studying the history of eugenics?

It raises some really difficult questions because we need to trust science, because it’s the best guide we have to making evidence-based decisions. However, I think the public needs to understand—and it’s a difficult concept to accept—that science is always evolving, and the definitions and theories that we have now are our best understanding of science. We have to base our decisions on our best understanding at the time, but also be critical, look at things with a skeptical eye, always ask questions, always become aware of the fact that science is an evolving thing. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t use it now as the basis for our decisions.

It’s sort of like the coronavirus pandemic. It’s a new virus. We don’t understand it, and at the beginning of the pandemic we had ideas or theories about how it worked and how it was transmitted, some of which turned out to be not as close to the truth as we know now. That’s just the way science is, but that’s very difficult to explain when people want black and white answers.

How do you think we can find that balance between a healthy amount of skepticism but also trusting the experts? 

Very good question. I think one of the things that I try to teach my students, for example, is how to vet expertise. For example, in my beginning reporting classes, I have students do little scavenger hunts online. I’ll give them a list of things to search for, and then we talk about how do you vet this? How do you know this is a good website or that this is a real authority? So, you have to [ask] things like, “Is this somebody’s blog? Is this a dot gov? Though we know dot govs are not always accurate. Or dot nets? I teach them how to find the most reliable sources that they can. And follow the money; who’s funding this research? Who funded this website? Who’s in charge of curating the information? It’s things like that that are really important things to learn for the general public too, because some people assume if it’s on the internet, then it’s accurate.

…Interestingly, there was an anti-propaganda movement in the 30s that basically taught people—they had booklets and tips, and they had even a curriculum—how to identify propaganda. They had I think eight different terms that they had people looking for. “Bandwagon.” That’s a term we still use now, like “jumping on the bandwagon.” Just sort of going along because you see a lot of people there on the bandwagon and you jump on, too, without looking at things. But that movement ended around the time World War II started being on the horizon, because from my reading—this is my opinion—there was a recognition that if they started talking about propaganda by other countries, it would come down to looking at ours, too.

Just speaking broadly, is there anything else about your research or this article that you want readers to take away? Anything that you think people should learn, or understand, or look further into? 

I said when I first looked into [Science Service], “Wow, this science organization hired a lot of women. It had noble goals.” I think we should look beyond our idealized views of things and learn not just about the positives and the strength, but we should also look for those areas where maybe things were off a little bit. It doesn’t mean you have to have a negative view of the world. It’s just…search. Be skeptical. Don’t stop at the simple answer. Dig deeper.